Auditory and cognitive abilities of children suspected of auditory processing disorder (APD)

ObjectiveAuditory processing disorder (APD) is typically characterised by difficulties in ‘listening’, particularly to speech in a noisy environment, despite normal peripheral function. In school-age children, APD has attracted considerable interest because of suspicions that it may lead to learning difficulties, especially affecting language and literacy. Here, we evaluated auditory and cognitive abilities in a group of children referred for an auditory evaluation on the grounds of a suspected auditory processing disorder (susAPD), and in age-matched children who were typically developing, in order to determine the extent to which any deficits in cognitive abilities could be related to auditory deficits.MethodsA battery of auditory and cognitive tests was applied to 20 susAPD school-age children, all reported as having listening/hearing problems but performing within normal limits for standard audiometric assessments. Also tested was a group of 28 age-matched controls. The auditory tasks consisted of two simple same/different discrimination tasks, one using speech, and one nonspeech. The cognitive evaluation comprised a vocabulary test, a test of grammar and four non-verbal IQ measures. Symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) were assessed in the susAPD group through a standardised questionnaire.ResultsA significant proportion of susAPD children appeared to display genuine auditory deficits evidenced by poor performance on at least one of the auditory tasks, although about 1/3 had no detectable deficit. Children in the susAPD group scored consistently lower than the controls on cognitive measures that were both verbal (vocabulary and grammar) and non-verbal. Strikingly, susAPD children with relatively good auditory performance did not differ in cognitive ability from susAPD children with poor auditory performance. Similarly, within-group correlations between auditory and cognitive measures were weak or non-existent. Measures of ADHD did not correlate with any aspect of auditory or cognitive performance.ConclusionsAlthough children suspected of having APD do show, on average, poorer performance on a number of auditory tasks, the presence or absence of an auditory deficit appears to have little impact on the development of the verbal and non-verbal skills tested here.